Just

I have not made a secret about my feelings regarding jury duty. I tend to swing from a mild ambivalence when it comes to my civic duty to the abject fear of being stuck somewhere that I would really rather not be. I suppose a certain percentage of this antipathy arises from a feeling that being called once a year, like clockwork, has left me feeling somewhat persecuted. Add that to the anxiety I bring along to each and every new situation and you've got the makings for some solid paranoia. Yet, when I am called, I respond. Sometimes I ask for a deferral, a delay that makes me feel like the whole matter is somehow under my control. But it's not, really.
Hence my whining. 
Recently I read an article about a young man from West Palm Beach in Florida, who was sentenced to ten days in jail, one hundred fifty hours of community service and told to pay a two hundred twenty-three dollar fine for sleeping through his alarm. The alarm that was set in order to get him to jury duty on time. He was further instructed by the powers that be  to pen a “sincere” apology letter. Deandre Somerville, the youth in question, was supposed to be on a jury for a negligence case linked to a car accident at the end of August. He did not make his appointed seat. He had overslept. His absence caused the trial to be delayed by forty-five minutes. For this, he was sentenced for ten days in jail and a year of probation. That year was later cut to three months and his community service reduced from one hundred fifty hours to thirty. As part of that community service, he has been asked to give a weekly talk at the jury office about why jury duty is so important. 
Outraged yet? 
How about tossing in that Deandre lives with his grandparents and helps take care of his grandfather in addition to his  work with after-school programs for the West Palm Beach parks and recreation department. It would seem he has some prior relationship to public service. Now he has a criminal record. And a weekly gig at the jury office. 
That'll teach him.